NOW that the new US Government under Donald Trump has withdrawn funding from the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), Marie Stopes Foundation and other entities that offer abortion-on-demand, it is time for our Christian Nation to talk about it.
In fact, the US Government now has legal power to even de-fund literally all abortion international bodies.
After all such entities as the named two operate in Zambia. What is the Christian Nation position on abortion on demand?
Since the world’s greatest superpower has taken a strong position (Mexico City Policy) to reverse 44 years of judicial sympathy for those who believe that a zygote is not a human being, why should Zambia entertain organisations promoting abortion as a human right even without any medical threats to expectant mothers?
The Mexico City Policy bans funding to organisations that perform abortions overseas or lobby for legalising them in foreign nations.
Trump’s pro-life action comes a day after the 44th anniversary of the notorious Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling, which along with the court’s Doe v. Bolton decision, established abortion-on-demand as the law of the land.
And already, a wave of pro-life bills have already been introduced in the first few weeks of this year’s state legislative sessions.
Nearly 50 new bills include bans on dismemberment abortions and any procedure after 20 weeks gestation, foetal burial requirements, and bills that would defund Planned Parenthood.
“With the election of a pro-life president, with all of the gains that we made across the different states with last year’s election, I think we are very optimistic in passing laws that protect the unborn baby and their moms,” National Right to Life Committee’s Ingrid Duran told me.
Abortion’s glaring consequences on the emotional, psychological, mental and spiritual health of the aborted mother are ignored.
Abortion is presented as a solution for ‘unwanted’ babies — no questions asked — and while it allows men to escape the demands of fatherhood, women bear the scars of terminated motherhood for life.
At its barest essence, abortion liberties are merely a fight against sexual chastity. And how many women should abort to cover their past?
Is past sin ever covered, in the truest sense, from evils that still live today in the sub-conscious mind?
LAWS
The laws are changing in the US.
Last year, lawmakers approved 60 new pro-life laws across the country, and leaders expect more of the same focus this year, simply with more energy.
The arguments raised against abortion providers in this column on September 25, 2015 have been validated.
On July 26, 2012 the Times of Zambia reported that Government had banned Marie Stopes International from performing abortions after discovering the NGO had committed 490 illegal abortions in five months.
In Zambia, the Abortions Act of 1972 permits abortion only to save the life of the mother, and a life-threatening condition that must be certified by three doctors. Illegal abortion is equated with murder, and the penalty by law is life imprisonment or the death sentence.
Marie Stopes International performed 490 abortions from January until May with the approval of a local medical doctor who authorised 430 abortions in Nakonde, 30 in Kasama and another 30 in Mpika in the nation’s Northern and Muchinga provinces.
Then Northern Province Permanent Secretary Emmanuel Mwamba indicated Marie Stopes International was performing abortions for the sake of convenience, unwanted pregnancy, or economic concerns.
In a letter, he urged then provincial Police commissioner Mary Chikwanda to pursue criminal charges against all parties involved.
“The management has been ordered to suspend abortion services immediately,” said Health Minister Joseph Kasonde during a Press conference in Lusaka.
“However, the rest of the services may continue, and the organisation may continue to operate in the country.”
We also argued in that edition of the column that health programmes targeting children (especially girls) in schools should be thoroughly questioned, rather than being swallowed each time donor-driven experiments target our young generation.
The question remains: Is Zambia the most willing research specimen in Africa, swiftly embracing every health vaccine concocted in Geneva or New York?
Elephantiasis was a scare with no historical basis in Zambia; it has faded away just like the Human Papilloma Virus (cervical cancer) issue is doing.
There are perceptions in both urban and rural areas that there is a hidden agenda to reduce numbers of black people by inoculating them with substances that will make it impossible for generations to have children in future.
For example, the frail explanations given for targeting girls in primary schools for Human Papilloma Virus vaccinations have in fact fuelled such fears among many Zambians.
And the free tampons for school girls, announced in the budget address by Finance Minister Felix Mutati, should be thoroughly inspected because if not, they will introduce toxicity into the young feminine bodies.
Then there are lethal substances that have been banned in the West and around Africa, which Zambia continues to gobble up as rebranded (camouflaged) products. Take contraceptives Depo-Provera and Jadelle (Norplant 2) which are in use here.
The Diaspora News on August 14 reported that countries including Germany had long banned the use of Depo-Provera outright on their citizens. Zimbabwe banned the use of Depo-Provera on its citizens while Kenya recommended Depo-Provera can be used only with women 30 years and older or who already have at least four children.
Zambia simply swallows everything foreign wholesale without thinking.
What brought Planned Parenthood into bad books with the US Government was that in August 2014, a top medical official overseeing abortions with the organisation admitted on hidden camera that the organisation charged per-specimen for baby body parts, used illegal partial-birth abortion procedures to get sellable parts.
The organisation, being aware of their own liability for doing so, took steps to cover it up.
She described how abortion procedures were altered not for the safety of women but to get the most marketable body parts, including intact livers, hearts and heads, which were highly sought by those who procure human body tissue for research.
In the video, she spoke in detail about how she meticulously ‘crushes’ above and below the thorax to destroy the baby while leaving its head intact.
She further said she ‘huddles’ with her staff in the morning to go over which body parts are requested by buyers and then came up with a game plan to harvest those organs from the unborn babies that will be aborted that day.
Republican presidential candidates and other pro-lifers were sickened and outraged.
“The truth of Planned Parenthood’s grisly objectives is now confirmed,” Michele Bachmann told the media. “Planned Parenthood’s goal has always been about making hundreds of millions of dollars a year off the troubles of young pregnant women,” said the retired congress woman from Minnesota.
“Planned Parenthood makes money on birth control, on youth sex education (which doesn’t discourage underage sexual activity), on abortions (as the largest abortion provider in the United States), and now on the illegal trafficking of aborted foetal parts.
“It is time for congress and state legislatures to wake up, take action and stop taxpayers’ money from going to this heartless organisation responsible, literally for the deaths of millions of unborn Americans.”
Laws restricting abortion already have momentum: The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute reported last year that 288 bills — more than one-fourth of all pro-life laws passed since 1973 — came after 2010.
Apparently, the Trump scalpel will peel the Obamacare programme off the books of law because it sanctioned such legislation.
Until 2015, most pro-life measures addressed medication abortion, private insurance mandates, and parental involvement. Coinciding with the release of undercover videos revealing Planned Parenthood’s involvement in the foetal tissue trade, lawmakers began focusing on abortion facility regulations and the humanity of the unborn child.
The pro-life bills include a ban on abortions due to an unborn baby’s sex, race, or a diagnosis of down syndrome; five bills addressing the sale or donation of aborted baby body parts; and a bill that would extend greater protections to embryos conceived through in-vitro fertilisation.
In Iowa, where the most recent pro-life law (a parental notification bill) passed in 1996, state senators have introduced half a dozen pro-life measures. One bill classifies unborn babies weighing at least 350 grammes (0.77 pounds) as a “person,” and a bill that would make dealing in baby body parts a felony.
Trump spokesman Sean Spicer has said that President Trump “wants to stand up for all Americans including the unborn,” and ensure taxpayer funding is” reflecting American values,” including the respect for life.”
The Christian Nation must be seen to take public positions on issues that disadvantage many women in years to come; all abortion providers operating in Zambia must be scrutinised and told to leave. They certainly cannot stop carrying out abortions because to them, that is a basic human right and a huge revenue earner.
We are a people who are mortified by the question of babies dumped into pit latrines, some of whom have been retrieved from the slime. Similarly, abortion-on-demand (without life-threatening pressure on the mother) should be seen as a mere excuse for escaping responsibility towards the unborn.
The Women’s March on Washington, held at the same time Trump was being sworn in on January 20, 2017, was criticised for failing to contend for the rights of the unborn.
Trump is fulfilling his campaign promises. It is time we too fulfilled the rights of the unborn by seeing to it that no organisation promises and offers abortion-on-demand on Zambian soil.
Email: all.information@ymail.com

By JUDITH NAMUTOWE -
THE Zambezi River Authority (ZRA) has said the feasibility study on the Batoka Hydropower Station has been reviewed.
ZRA chief executive officer Munyaradzi Munodawafa said in an interview yesterday that the review on the demo structure, power house and capacity output on the project had been completed.
Mr Munodawafa said the authority was currently waiting for the second phase of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).
‘‘We have reviewed the Batoka Hydropower Station feasibility study. The study on the demo structure, power house structure and the capacity output on the project has been completed,’’ Mr Munodawafa said.
He said the finalisation of the study and the EIA was expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2015.
Mr Munodawfa said consultants were currently working on other processes and thereafter the project committee which include senior Government officials , utilities and ZRA would visit the project this month.
He said once all these processes were completed, ZRA would then be able to select the developer for the project, after which the authority would be able to come up with the actual value of the project.
Zambia and Zimbabwe signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to team up and start the Batoka hydropower project which is estimated to cost about US$4 billion.
The agreement was signed during the council of ministers held at Kariba in Siavonga recently.